PROJECT CUPID
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY NEIL POTNIS
GENRE: EXPERIMENTAL/SATTIRE
RELEASED: FEBRUARY 11, 2018
THE STORY
"Project Cupid" is an experimental/ satirical dramedy about two high school students taking an enhanced version of Adderall to perform at the highest level.
BEHIND THE SCENES
The early outlining stages of Project Cupid began in August of 2016. Going into the film, the team wanted to craft a story that would be "like a treasure map." Before writing, the characters were designed in Autodesk Character Generator to get a proper vision of what the characters would look like. The script writing process began April of 2017 and finished that following May with the film titled, "Drugs and Stuffed Toy Animals." Filming was set to begin in August and throughout the three-month gap, the script went through eleven revisions. After a six-day shoot with the cast and crew working eight hours a day, the initial filming process was complete. The script of the film then went under a twelfth and major revision, and was re-titled "Project Cupid." Four additional scenes were shot in December. The editing of the film began in August and ended in January of 2018.
THE REST OF AMERICA
NEIL POTNIS
SOCIAL ISSUES
There is a known idea that the people who vote for the candidate of one party for president are likely to be the same people to vote for the candidate of the opposing party a couple years down the road. This idea can be applied to numerous election cycles with Clinton followed by Bush and subsequently, Obama followed by Trump, and without truly understanding this idea, our country will not be able to move forward if we continue to consistently question and belittle each other’s motives as an American. What we must choose to understand is that something worked for each of these candidates that got them elected and it was their ability to carry a message of moving America forward--a pro-America campaign. In the case of the past two presidents, both Obama and Trump were able to reach out to a part of America that was hurting economically, and for Trump, it was those affected by factory closings. Now, there is much to analyze of what went wrong in the 2016 election cycle, but in the end, whichever candidate came out on top is the one that got it right. Hillary Clinton’s statement about the “basket of deplorables” may have included racists and bigots, an inexcusable group of people, but that “basket” also included decent hard working Americans who were hurting nationwide. Clinton’s generalizations proved that she just didn’t get it-- many of the people who voted for Trump were voting for their livelihood. However, two years down the road, with the promise of reviving the agricultural and manufacturing industry, President Trump has, in fact, exacerbated the situation...
The tariffs placed on Chinese and Mexican goods coming into the United States are likely to sink the United States economy into a recession, tariffs which are reminiscent of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which placed tariffs on 20,000 imported goods, which in the short-term worked for about a year due to the increase in industrial production, but then subsequently worsened the situation of the Great Depression because of the sixty percent decrease in both imported and exported goods. Furthermore, there are many examples of how the current tariffs are negatively affecting Americans due to retaliatory tariffs placed on the United States. For example, the Trump imposed tariffs on health care equipment from China will lead to an increase in medical costs and nail factories nationwide have also seen a rise in cost for raw materials. A recent coverage done by Beme News interviewed workers of Mid Continent Nail, the second largest employer in its county which lost fifty percent of its orders within two weeks of the tariffs being set into motion and within sixty days its business was down seventy percent. Similar counties which had high turnouts for President Trump in 2016 based on his deceiving promises are now worse off in comparison to when he came into office. On December 1, President Trump came to an agreement with President Xi Jinping of China at the G20 to halt the increase on tariffs of Chinese goods for ninety days, however, if negotiations do not go as planned, the tariffs will continue to increase. Furthermore, China will plan on purchasing goods from the United States agriculture and other industries which will somewhat alleviate a problem that was created by the President in the first place.
The current administration is looking out for the one percent and not the rest of us. The promises made of reviving industries have not been met, and come 2020 the chosen candidate opposing President Trump, whomever they will be, has to be a person willing to do something for Americans more than wanting to be something. And I do believe that the President wants to do something for this country, but whether it has had a positive impact is up to the voters to decide come next election cycle...
Sources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1A0oxf9UPA